Art in Review; Italia!

By GRACE GLUECK

Published: July 14, 2006

Muse to American Artists, 1830-2005
National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts
1083 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street
Through Dec. 31

In the early 19th century the appeal of classical antiquity drew many artists to Italy, among them members of the National Academy of Design, which was founded in 1825. The attraction continued (and continues) long after Paris, with its intense focus on modernism, had become the art center of Europe. This show of works by National Academy members presents artists' varied responses -- in paintings, sculptures and prints -- to the Italian experience.

Unfortunately, it's an uneven display, with too many mediocre creations jostling the good ones. The artists range from 19th-century names like Thomas Moran, the expatriate William Stanley Haseltine and Frank Duveneck to current practitioners, among them Gregory Amenoff, Richard Haas, Jane Wilson and John Ross. But also present are more than a few whose obscurity today is not surprising.

You can still take a pleasant tour of Italy here. Among the older works, Haseltine's large ''Sunrise at Capri'' (1880-1900) presents a rosy view of huge pink headland rocks jutting into a lively blue bay, with a small white town sprawled behind them. Two beautifully precise etchings by John Taylor Arms from the early 1930's (prints are among the best things in the show) strongly portray the towers of San Gimignano and an ancient Venetian footbridge. A pair of small paintings from 1897 and 1911 by another expatriate, Elihu Vedder, convey the luscious landscapes of Orvieto and Viareggio. For comic relief, there is William Magrath's painting ''A Connoisseur'' (1873), depicting a monk ogling Titian's sexy ''Venus of Urbino.''

More recent attractions include Alfred Bendiner's sprightly drawing of St. Mark's in Venice (1953), in which the church's multiple towers, domes and arches are seen as a playful arrangement of forms. Reynold Henry Weidenaar's black-and-white etching ''Ponte Vecchio'' (1968), is a richly detailed 20th-century take on the ancient Florentine bridge, tourists, tumbledown structures and all. Gregory Amenoff's restless, technically complex print ''Chianti I'' (2004) projects the atmosphere of a locale high above a valley, in which poplars, switchback roads and moonlight nights are important elements. And Clare Romano scores with a cluster of four small paintings, each depicting with pizazz a burst of fireworks over Venice. Would that the show itself had more sizzle. GRACE GLUECK